The Command of War in Islam

Initiating hostility is not permitted for Muslims. The Quran says: “They were the first to attack you.” (9:13) Furthermore, even in the case of the offensive being launched by an opposing group, the believers are not supposed to retaliate immediately. Rather in the beginning all efforts are to be made to avert war, and only when avoidance has become impossible is battle to be resorted to inevitably in defence. 3. According to the Quran there was one form of war which was time-bound strictly in relation to its purpose. This was to put an end to fitna. ‘Fight against them until fitna is no more.’ (2:193) In this verse, fitna signifies that coercive system which had reached the extremes of religious persecution. In ancient times this coercive political system prevailed all over the world. This absolutism had closed all the doors of progress, both spiritual and material. At that time, God commanded the believers to break this coercive system in order to usher in freedom, so that all doors of spiritual and material progress might be opened to man. This mission was undertaken and brought to a successful conclusion at the internal level within Arabia during the life of the Prophet. Later, during the pious caliphate, the Sassanid and Byzantine empires were dismantled with special divine succour. Consequently, intellectual oppression at the international level was replaced by intellectual freedom. In this connection those traditions are worth noting which are enshrined in Sahih al-Bukhari. When, after the fourth caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, political conflict ensued between Abdullah ibn Zubayr and the Umayyads, Abdullah ibn Umar, one of the senior most